linguistlist.org>
Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>
andrew.ac.jp>My query about negative imperatives with overt 'you' (*You don't kick that pigeon!) brought me over 30 replies; my thanks to Mahani Aljunied Glynis Baguley Paul Boersma Ruth M. Brend Mike Cahill Daniel Collins Karen Courtenay Peter T. Daniels Damon Allen Davison Lance Eccles Stephanie Gelderloos Frank Y. Gladney John Hellermann Earl Herrick Richard S. Kaminski Larry Fiona Macarthur Purdon Betsy McCall Philip McGuire Elizabeth McKeown Gerald B. Mathias Mike Maxwell Rebecca Larche Moreton Chad D. Nilep Amanda Owen Elizabeth J. Pyatt Karl Reinhardt Kevin Rottet Geoffrey Sampson Bonnie D. Schwartz, falsely hight Durham Linguistics Marilyn Silva Michael Swan J. Taylor The replies show a good deal of agreement: aside from 2 tentative judgments, we all agreed that imperatives of the form 'You don't V' are unacceptable. Most respondents also pointed out, while kindly refraining from remarking that I had overlooked the obvious, that subject-aux inversion yields a perfectly acceptable imperative: Don't you kick that pigeon! vs. *You don't kick that pigeon! Unfortunately, the problem remains of why inversion is (seemingly) necessary. One person suggested that the inverted imperative can be distinguished from a yes/no question by intonation, whereas the uninverted form cannot be so distinguished from a declarative. However, I would think that, say, 'You don't open your mouth!', in context, wouldn't raise any problem of interpretation. A number of respondents suggested that the 'you' in these negative imperatives is actually a vocative rather than a subject. The catch here seems to me to be that vocatives usually have their own intonation contour: John / come over here. But the 'you' in an inverted negative imperative typically doesn't; and on the other hand, the 'you' in an affirmative imperative usually does! (YOU be quiet! ??You be QUIET! DON'T you kick that pigeon! ?? Don't YOU kick that pigeon!) I had the definite sense from the responses that most of us felt hampered by the fact that we virtually never *use* overt 'you' in imperatives of any kind, and that thus our intuitions were not that robust--aside, as I said, from the general agreement that *You don't V! If I might refer to the recent discussion on Newmeyer's book, and an opinion I offered in that discussion, this might be a nice example of where we really need a theory to settle the question. Kevin R. Gregg Momoyama Gakuin University (St. Andrew's University) 1-1 Manabino, Izumi Osaka 594-1198 Japan tel.no. 0725-54-3131 (ext. 3622) fax. 0725-54-3202Mail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue